The Mentoring Advantage: Creating the Next Generation of Leaders

243 Pages·2004·2.76 MB·English

by  Florence Stone

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© 2004 by Florence Stone
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stone, Florence M.
The mentoring advantage : creating the next generation of leaders / Florence
Stone.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7931-8692-7
1. Mentoring in business. 2. Employees—Training of. 3. Career
development. I.Title.
HF5385.S77 2004
658.3′124—dc22
2004012766
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C o n t e n t s
FOREWORD by Frances Hesselbein v
INTRODUCTION What Mentoring Is All About—
and What It Isn’t About ix
PART ONE
BUILDING MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS
1. WHO IS TO BE A MENTOR,
WHOM IS TO BE MENTORED? 1
2. THE THREE STAGES OF MENTORING 17
PART TWO
THE EFFECTIVE MENTOR: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
3. BEING A ROLE MODEL, BROKER, AND ADVOCATE 29
4. MENTOR AS CAREER COUNSELOR 41
5. STRAIGHT TALK 57
6. THE E-DIMENSION 75
7. MENTORING THROUGH DIFFICULT SITUATIONS 91
8. SUPERVISOR AS MENTOR 105
9. TRAPS TO AVOID 119
PART THREE
TEAM MENTORING
10. TEAM MENTORSHIP AND ITS CHALLENGES 131
iii
iv Contents
PART FOUR
THE HOW-TO OF FACILITATED PROGRAMS
11. WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL FORMAL SYSTEM? 147
12. SELECTION OF A PROGRAM COORDINATOR
OR COORDINATING COMMITTEE—AND
THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES 161
13. NEGOTIATING SOUND MENTORING AGREEMENTS
AND EVALUATING RESULTS 179
14. SPECIAL SITUATIONS 193
INDEX 207
F o r e w o r d
T
he Mentoring Advantage is a welcome addition
to the library of leaders. Florence Stone’s book comes at the height of in-
terest in mentoring in all sectors—public, private, and government. It ad-
dresses questions that organizations and executives, managers, and others
have as they consider either becoming a mentor or initiating a formal men-
toring program.
I myself have been a mentor on several occasions—while the head of the
Girl Scouts and as president and chief executive officer, and now chairman,
of the Leader to Leader Institute, formerly the Drucker Foundation.
Let me share with you a story related to my experience as a mentor.
Several years ago, I was at a prestigious university where I had been invited
to speak. I would be speaking both at noon and later in the evening. While
there, I was invited to join a small group of faculty members, all women, in
an informal dialogue. I was delighted to join them that afternoon, for that
experience gave me a new understanding of a critical factor—an essential
support—in the leadership development of men and women in the univer-
sity world, as well as in business, nonprofit, and government sectors.
The issue these accomplished, tenured, published professors wanted to
discuss was the retention of younger faculty members: young women, 28 to
30 years of age. Unfortunately, too often, these young women joined the fac-
ulty only to leave a few years later. The big question the group wanted me to
discuss with it was: “What can we do to retain these valuable young faculty
members?”
I responded with a question of my own: “How many of you are mentor-
ing these young women?” I was greeted with silence. Not one faculty mem-
ber had been a mentor to one of these valuable young women that the group
said it wanted to keep on the faculty.
My response was simple: “Until every person in this room is mentoring
a young faculty member, we cannot complain when they leave all too soon.”
They responded in term: “How many young women do you mentor?” I
replied, “three,” and then described the three young women I have been
mentoring for several years.
v
vi Foreword
I talked about LCR Carla Grantham, U.S. Coast Guard. She had called
on me to discuss a substantial fellowship she had just received and wanted to
use it at the then Drucker Foundation for six months. It would enable her to
live in New York, shadow me, travel with me, attend meetings where I was
speaking, and work in my office for six months. As attractive as this oppor-
tunity was, I felt it would not be fair to have her spend so much of her valu-
able six months of study in airports, as I travel at least twice a week speaking
in this country or abroad. I suggested, instead, that she find another place
to apply her fellowship. Instead, I would be her mentor. We could meet every
few months in New York or Washington, and she could shadow me at our
conferences, or other events. Acting as her mentor would be the best way I
could help her with her leadership growth.
It has been six years, and today Lt. Commander Grantham is at a re-
markable point in her career. She recently received her graduate degree in
communication and is serving as the officer responsible for the recruitment
of Naval and Coast Guard officers, inspiring young students and fellow ser-
vice members with her example.
In these six years, I have discovered that mentoring is circular, and that
I’ve learned more from LCR Carla Grantham than she has learned from me.
Then I told the faculty members at that university about the second
young woman I mentor, a student from Senzhen, China. I met Lin Yuang
and her mother when I was speaking to a group of Chinese business leaders
in Senzhen. After the speech, the mother and Lin Yuang came up to me and
said they felt I should be the daughter’s mentor. I said I would be honored,
and with e-mail, we could have remarkable exchanges. I did not hear from
my new mentee for months, then one day she called, said she was enrolled
at the State University on Staten Island in New York, and was ready to begin
our mentoring sessions. And so we did. We have been on an adventure in
cross-cultural mentoring ever since. When Lin and I have our scheduled
luncheons together, both of us learn when she looks at her list and says,
“Now in your culture, what does this means when someone says, etc. etc.”
Our dialogue brightens my day.
When Lin Yuang’s parents visited her last Labor Day, the three came to
spend the holiday at my house in Easton, Pennsylvania, and taught me to
make Chinese dumplings, while I introduced them to Cornish pasties.
Commander Grantham is of African-American descent, Lin Yuang is
Chinese, and the third mentee is white, a successful young lawyer, and a busi-
ness leader.
Each of my mentees has great depth, great potential, and great present
performance. Because we are not all white, there is an enormously rich dimen-
sion in the diversity of my small mentoring group.
Foreword vii
I shared these stories with the faculty members, and they listened with
great interest, because I was not sharing theory—these were living case stud-
ies about the lives of four women—three young, the fourth older, but each
finding many of the values and benefits Florence Stone writes about in her
book The Mentoring Advantage.
In mentoring of young school children by older students, students bring
a new excitement to the classrooms as well as to their lives. Because mentor-
ing is coming into its own at every level in every sector, particularly in public
and private schools, we see a new generation emerging with leadership po-
tential, leadership experience enhanced by the mentoring experience.
As I look at the three young women I mentor, they represent all three
sectors: corporate, government, and academic. What is interesting to me, in
all of the mentoring experiences I have had, is that the other person initiated
it, we agreed upon the ways we would work, how, when, and why. The why
was the most important part of the agreement, and always learning and
growing were a part of the expectations. In the past, many of us have entered
into these mentoring relationships without the clarity, the understanding of
roles, responsibilities/expectations, the means by which we would measure
results, or definitions of all the roles the mentor would play.
This is especially what makes Florence Stone’s definitive study of mentor-
ing so valuable. In a very readable manner, she also explains how organiza-
tions can go about developing formal programs, from setting program goals
to development of the agreement between the mentor and mentee to manage-
ment of the mentoring process, and it is a process. But this book isn’t only
for those organizations that want to formalize mentoring. It is for each and
every individual, regardless of position or sector of society, young or old, who
want guidance as they embark upon this adventure in human relationships.
Our tenuous times increase the interest of both those who wish to be
mentored and those who would mentor. The value of the experience to both
is enhanced when the mentoring is circular. There are many books on
coaching or counseling, or mentoring. Someone has said that coaching is
“somewhere between the couch and the confessional.”
This book defines the differences, describes the systems, and provides
guidelines for development and measurements for results.
In the end mentoring is all about relationships, all about human growth
and potential, all about skills and the spirit within.
Mentoring requires leadership, and courage, on the part of the mentee
to engage in this new relationship, and the same for the mentor who must
be willing to open up his or her life. It takes courage to be mentored and still
more to mentor, and for both a commitment to partner in an adventure in
personal leadership learning and growing.
viii Foreword
Mentoring has a proud, historical background. In the Spring 2004 issue
of MWorld, there is even mention of a lesson on mentoring from the Lewis
and Clark Expedition: “Seek out mentors to expand your horizon. Thomas
Jefferson helped Lewis understand that the mission was not just about com-
merce; it was about nation building. And George Rogers Clark, a Revolu-
tionary War hero, similarly influenced his younger brother’s decision to join
the expedition for the future of America.” Vision of the future, expanding
horizons, coming through two great leaders of our country’s past with a pow-
erful message for leaders of the future.
Florence Stone leads the way in The Mentoring Advantage.
Frances Hesselbein
Chairman of the Board
Leader to Leader Institute
I n t r o d u c t i o n
WHAT MENTORING IS ALL ABOUT—
AND WHAT IT ISN’T ABOUT
M
entoring is a trend sweeping through cor-
porate America—and with cause. In interviews, almost all leaders today have
pointed to one or more individuals who had a major influence on their pro-
fessional lives, if not both their professional and personal lives. Being men-
tored has come to be considered one of the great things we can all do to
advance our careers. So, today, hundreds of thousands of informal relation-
ships are occurring as ambitious employees and managers—not to mention
would-be entrepreneurs—look for ways to achieve their career goals faster
with the help of a more experienced advisor or counselor. Structured or fa-
cilitated company programs are also on an increase as organizations see that
mentoring programs can shorten learning tracks, speed up managerial ad-
vancement, and build the next generation of leaders.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
Those who are mentored report that mentoring relationships raise their
morale, increase their capabilities, and contribute to shared listening. But
the benefits are not one-sided. Mentors have found that the experience can
benefit them as much as it helps the mentees. Those who act as mentors
grow their coaching and counseling skills, expand their access to informa-
tion and build contacts, and gain a sense of well-being from sharing their
ix